I was born on June 5, 1982, in the city
of Oswego in central New York, and spent my childhood
in the town of Sterling, practically on the shore of
Lake Ontario. I am the second of three children. My
father comes from a family of Dutch protestants, whereas my
mother is the daughter of Italian immigrants and has been
a Catholic her whole life. My parents were married in
the Catholic Church and my brothers and I were baptized
Catholics and went to a private Catholic school.

One day when
I was about 4 or 5, my mom took me
to weekday mass at our parish. I was very little
and wasn’t an alter boy yet, but that day our
parish priest, a holy man, asked me if I would
like to ring the bells during the consecration. I said
yes, so he gave me the bells and I sat
in the first pew with my mother. At the moment
of the consecration she told me when to ring them
and I did, first for the consecration of the bread
and then of the wine. At that moment, I remember,
I thought for the first time that perhaps I would
like to be a priest.

We used to talk with
my friends about what we wanted to be when we
grew up: of course one wanted to be a politician,
another a firefighter, another a doctor, another the president… in
short, we all wanted to be heroes. In that instant
there in my parish church, I understood in some way
that the priest is more important than all those others,
for only he can change the bread and wine into
the body and blood of Jesus.

A few years passed.
My parish priest taught me to be an altar boy,

he gave me my first communion, and he gave me
above all the example of a life dedicated to serving
God and others.

In fourth grade I began to feel
restless. I felt that God was calling me to be
a priest, and that I should start preparing myself in
some way. So I asked my mom if there was
some school for boys who wanted to be priests. She
is a very religious person and knew that I felt
the vocation stirring in me. If my question surprised her,
it didn’t show. She said that she had a friend
whose son was studying to be a priest and she
would look into it.

It turns out that my mom’s
friend was a member of Regnum Christi and her son
was at the Apostolic School of the Legion of Christ
in New Hampshire. Thus, my family met the Legionaries for
the first time. It was 1992. My mom’s friend put
us in touch with Fr Kermit Syren, a young Legionary
priest who had been ordained in Rome by John Paul
II a year before. He invited us to visit the
Apostolic School in New Hampshire and so my family went
for a few days to see it. I was only
10 and the apostolics were all older than me, and
I don’t remember much from that first visit. During the
next school year I returned several times for retreats. I
remember the first one very clearly. As soon as I
arrived I felt at home, happy and at peace, and
I felt that God really wanted me there. The next
summer, 1993, I went to the summer program and entered
the Apostolic School at the end of the summer. Thus
began the great adventure of preparation for the priesthood.

Twenty
years have passed since then: beautiful years, full of joys
and sorrows, of countless graces; years marked by the closeness
and motherly care of the Blessed Virgin and the unfailing
friendship of Jesus Christ. I thank God for so many
graces, for the support of my family, the prayers and
example of so many priests, religious, consecrated persons, and laity,
who have accompanied me on this path, above all for
my brothers and sisters in the Legion of Christ and
Regnum Christi. May God grant us the grace to persevere
in his friendship, serving our brothers and sisters until death.

Fr Nicholas Fisher was born in Oswego, New York (USA),
June 5, 1982. He entered the Legionaries of Christ as
a novice in Cheshire, Connecticut, U.S.A., on September 15, 1998,
to move after to the noviciate in Salamanca, Spain. He
studied humanities in Cheshire, Connecticut (USA). He has a license
in philosophy and bachelors in theology from the Pontifical Athenaeum
Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He carried out his apostolic internship
in New York (USA), Padua (Italy), and Vienna (Austria). He
is currently chaplain of the CEYCA grade school in Mexico
City.